Microsoft is now a top five PC maker in the US thanks to Surface sales

Surface shines with a solid sales uptick in the face of an overall decline

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Powered by its Surface devices, Microsoft has managed to become one of the top five players in the US PC market according to the latest stats from Gartner.

According to the figures for the third quarter of 2018, Microsoft snagged an estimated 4.1% of US market share (602,000 units shipped) which represents a solid growth of 1.9% year-on-year. It’s certainly solid when you consider the overall US market dipped by 0.4% compared to Q3 of 2017.

That puts Microsoft in fifth place in the rankings of PC vendors over in the States, behind Apple which is in fourth, albeit a long way ahead with a 13.7% market share. Lenovo is in third (15.4%), then it’s Dell (25.9%) with HP at the top on 30.7%.

That means Microsoft is ahead of Acer and Asus in the US, although not globally. Gartner’s worldwide figures show a flat market (up a tiny 0.1% year-on-year) with Lenovo as the number one PC manufacturer on 23.6%, followed by HP on 21.8%, then Dell on 16%. Apple is in fourth place on 7.3%, having experienced a serious drop in growth of 8.5% compared to the same quarter last year.

Mac misery

That Apple result is in line with IDC’s estimates, as we saw yesterday, which recorded an even bigger drop in Mac sales of 11.6% – quite possibly as folks hold off buying Apple’s machines with the expectation of refreshed hardware turning up later in October.

Back to Gartner’s global figures, where Acer is in fifth place on 6.1%, followed closely by Asus on 6.0%. Microsoft doesn’t come close to them here, but to see that it’s managed to overtake these two vendors in the US is pretty interesting to say the least.

Note that Gartner’s US figures do not include Chromebooks (or indeed iPads), but Microsoft’s hybrid Surface devices do fall under the analytics firm’s definition of a PC when it comes to compiling these stats.

Gartner did, however, observe that Chromebooks are continuing to sell well in the US to educational institutions, and indeed they experienced double-digit growth this quarter, which is very impressive.